


Litany in Which Certain Things Are Kept Secret

by orphan_account



Category: Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types, Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Angst, Character Study, Dissociation, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Pining, Pre-Canon, Self-Hatred, Tragedy, basically Jace dies before any of the show's events happen, mentions of disordered eating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-30 04:48:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6409438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At least Jace had died never knowing Alec’s secret. At least Alec had never told him how he felt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Litany in Which Certain Things Are Kept Secret

**Author's Note:**

> Every morning another chapter where the hero shifts  
> from one foot to the other. Every morning the same big  
> and little words all spelling out desire, all spelling out  
>  _You will be alone always and then you will die._
> 
> -Richard Siken, “Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out”

Alec watched the demon’s stinger slide into Jace’s chest, and for a moment he felt like he was in a dream. His mind felt very far away from his body, and it still did as his instincts kicked in and he stabbed his blade through the demon’s torso. It burst in a cloud of glowing ash and disappeared.

Then it was just the two of them: Alec standing and Jace collapsed on the ground. Then Alec kneeling, holding Jace’s head in his lap. Jace’s entire body was spasming as the demon’s venom attacked his heart. Alec knew that the healing rune wouldn’t work before he even tried it, but he couldn’t stop himself from lifting up Jace’s shirt and running his stele over the rune on his stomach. Over and over. Over and over, as if the fourth time might work when the first time didn’t.

Jace kept saying Alec’s name. Alec usually liked it when Jace said his name, but that time his voice came out breathy and strained. He was running out of air in his lungs.

 _Alec_ , Jace said. 

Alec could feel his lips moving but he didn’t know if any words were coming out. He wanted to say something that would fix the situation because this was not how the routine mission was meant to go. He wanted to speak some magic words that would heal Jace. He wanted to do anything to stop Jace spasming in his lap. 

_Alec_ , Jace said, one last time, and then he did stop spasming. He didn’t move anymore, and when Alec put his fingers to Jace’s throat his pulse had stilled, too. 

There were things that had to be done. Jace’s body had to be taken back to the Institute. Alec had to fill out paperwork. Reports.

Alec called the Institute and they sent a van to collect Jace’s body. Alec rode in the back with him. It was all very routine; shadowhunters died all the time. But Alec never thought Jace could die. He was a god in battle; he was the hero; he was the greatest shadowhunter. It was Alec’s job to have his back, so, Alec reasoned, it was his own fault that Jace had died. Jace couldn’t die. The flaw had been Alec. Alec had let Jace down one final time.

Tears wouldn’t come to Alec’s eyes. Not yet. It still didn’t feel like it was really happening. Maybe in the morning he would wake up and it would hit him, this fact that Jace was dead, but until then he felt a million miles away from his own body. So Alec just sat in the back of the van and watched Jace’s body where it was draped across the bench seat against the opposite wall. 

Alec didn’t remember when he fell in love with Jace. It didn’t happen in one moment, and, he supposed, it was difficult to know when it began because he had always loved Jace in some way. There was no moment when he realized Jace was beautiful; he had always thought of Jace as beautiful. There was no moment when he realized Jace was particularly strong or brave or loyal or committed; he had always known Jace to be that way. 

Alec didn’t feel his love change form, but he felt the consequences. He knew that there was some point in his life when he started to think about his love for Jace as a secret meant to be guarded. Alec didn’t remember when he fell in love with Jace, but he could remember the first moment when he touched Jace and felt shame.

They were young, and they both thought themselves much older, wiser, and more experienced than they actually were. In reality, they were relatively untrained in combat and had yet to be marked with many of the essential shadowhunter runes. When they were that age, they were forbidden to mark themselves with runes without adult supervision, but one day Alec and Jace were the last left in the training room, and Jace handed Alec his stele and asked him to mark his skin. 

Jace was already shirtless, and he turned so his back was towards Alec. Jace was all lean muscle then, there was no bulk to him, and his shoulder blades jutted sharply from his back. They had to keep the rune hidden from the adults, so Jace pointed to where he wanted it drawn on his right shoulder blade. Alec carefully set the tip of the stele against Jace’s skin. 

It was the first time Alec had ever marked anyone other than himself, and his hand trembled. He didn’t know why he did it, but he pressed his other palm flat against Jace’s back. Jace didn’t seem to care, so Alec left it there, and he could feel Jace’s skin beneath his fingers. 

Alec drew the rune for courage in combat. It looked like a dragon curling its own tail around itself, and Alec thought the design looked beautiful on Jace’s skin. It was appropriate, too, that Alec, Jace’s parabatai, would mark Jace with that rune. When Alec was done, he didn’t want to take his hand from Jace’s back. He didn’t want to step away. What he wanted was to keep touching Jace, to strip off all his clothes and keep touching him, touch him forever. 

Once the thought entered his mind Alec jumped away from Jace. He tried to scrub the idea from his brain by thinking of anything else, but it felt like a burn in his mind, and he felt like Jace could see the scar. So he left the room without saying anything and didn’t speak to Jace for the rest of the night. And that was Alec’s life, for years: he was scared of himself and scared of Jace finding out. 

Becoming Jace’s parabatai was at once the worst and best thing that could have happened. Their oath meant that Alec was allowed to love Jace. But he knew he was supposed to see Jace as a brother, that their oath was meant to bind them like blood, and that expectation only made Alec feel worse about himself. 

So Alec tried to smother his feelings as if he were grinding a cigarette butt into the sidewalk. He pushed himself to be a better soldier, a better leader, a better son. Every day he woke up early and trained and learned and followed the rules. He even ate the same things every day, in the same order, in hopes that he could make himself stronger. As long as he kept himself in control, he reasoned, no one could ever say anything against him.

Even Alec did not have perfect control of his desires, as much as he would have liked to. Alec never ate sweets, but so sometimes he allowed himself indulgences, always at night, and always in secret. When he was in his bed he allowed himself to think of Jace’s lips and what it might feel like to touch them, first with the pad of his thumb and then with his own lips. He imagined kisses before battle and kisses after the fight, lazy kisses on long afternoons and quick kisses during busy days, kisses at night and kisses first thing in the morning. 

When he got older, Alec thought of what it might feel like to push his hands up under Jace’s shirt and feel the hard muscle and rune scars and expanses of soft skin. Everything about Jace would be familiar: every rune, every battle scar, since Alec had been there to see most of them mark Jace’s skin. But it would be exhilarating, too, to hold Jace in that way: Alec thought of pulling Jace close to him and hearing Jace moan beneath him and whisper filthy words into his ear. 

Those thoughts were always followed by shame, yet he returned to them night after night. It felt dirty, too, that in the morning he spoke to Jace like those thoughts had never crossed his mind--when parabatai were supposed to be able to share everything with each other.

Alec was not the perfect parabatai. He wished he could be perfect, because that was what Jace deserved. But no matter how hard he trained and how hard he tried to fit the shadowhunter mold he could never crush his emotions. Because he was weak. 

But Jace, for some reason, stayed by his side. Even when they were arguing, even when they wouldn’t speak to each other, Jace was always there. Alec reasoned that if Jace knew what Alec truly wanted from him, he would break their parabatai bond and never speak to Alec again. 

Alec was thrown out of his thoughts and brought abruptly back to his body when the driver came to a stop behind the Institute. Everything was starting now. Alec wasn’t sure if word had gotten back to the Institute yet via the driver or if he would have to be the one to tell Isabelle that the boy she had loved as a brother was dead. Isabelle would cry. 

The driver opened the back doors of the van and looked at Alec expectantly. Alec was meant to move Jace’s body into the Institute and place him on one of the slabs in the basement. He was meant to fill out paperwork and talk to people and explain things. In that moment it all felt like so much. 

Alec moved to get up but instead he fell. His knees struck the cold metal of the van’s floor. His hands grasped at the air until he found Jace’s body. The fabric of his shirt was cool in Alec’s grip as he desperately grabbed at Jace. He took Jace’s hands in his own and rested his face against Jace’s belly. Alec had imagined this kind of intimate touch with Jace in the past. He had craved it, but not like this. 

Jace, he murmured, and then he began to cry. At least Jace had died never knowing Alec’s secret. At least Alec had never told him how he felt. 

Alec didn’t know how long he knelt there, crying into Jace’s shirt, before he felt hands on his back, pulling him away. Before that happened, though, Alec remembered a time when he had almost told Jace he loved him. One of the countless times, on the night before they had left for the mission.

It wasn’t a special moment, but that was why Alec loved it. Jace had been sprawled over the foot of Alec’s bed while Alec leaned against the pillows with a book in his lap. He hadn’t read a single page in over fifteen minutes since Jace had come into his room, which Alec didn’t mind, even though Alec had teased Jace that he was being bothersome. 

It was the normalcy of the moment that almost drew the words from his throat. He could imagine this picture in a very different world: if the two of them lived together, outside of the Institute, away from the pressures and expectations of shadowhunter life. Nights might pass like this, with Jace laying at the foot of Alec’s bed, talking to Alec while Alec pretended to read. It might be like that all the time, and, Alec thought, how easy it would be to say those words: _I’m in love with you._

But, Alec reasoned, it was a good thing he hadn’t. 

**Author's Note:**

> A big thanks to Kammy for being a huge help in the writing of this fic.


End file.
